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Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Ski Hut

The Ski House of the Day is a fun little log cabin called The Ski Hut. It differs from the other Ski Houses of the Day because it is not merely built near a ski trail, but rather it came from a ski trail... it originates from and literally grew out of a ski trail! The hut was built by Jalopy Cabins, a small and exceptionally eco-friendly builder (or in my opinion, a construction artist) in Colorado. Jalopy Cabins' website describes them as: "Makers of unique small cabins built with reclaimed materials." And the The Ski Hut, is a perfect example of that:

The Ski Hut is a 10 ft X 16 ft one-room log cabin (plus a 6-ft front porch) built of logs that were reclaimed from trees that had grown along and fallen across the ski slopes of the Wolf Creek Ski Area in Pagosa, Colorado. Jalopy Cabins hand-peeled the logs and you can see the rustic beauty that is the end result of those efforts. And that welcoming, white-as-snow front door? It was salvaged (formerly bright orange), painted, given a shiny new (working) door-knob, and thus given a cheerful new lease on life:

The nice-looking windows in The Ski Hut were someone else's "mistake" order, so they complemented the project very well; and the rafters and roofing were salvaged from an old house/barn and are perfect above the logs in The Ski Hut.

A few new things (such as new insulation in the ceiling and floor, plus electrical wiring, nails and the chinking sealing the spaces between the logs) had to be used in the process. But their focus is working with whatever materials they have, or what they can come up with, as opposed to buying/using/consuming new. One of the owners of Jalopy Cabins pointed out in an interview, on Pagosaphotography, that the reason there are no models or options for specific cabins on their website is because each cabin is unique and is determined by the materials that are available at the time they are needed. Check out the video tour of The Ski Hut.

I think The Ski Hut is adorable and has a very real feeling of environmental responsibility plus a connection with the past (isn't this the same way people of early American generations built their homes too?). And by the way, I think it's pretty cool to consider how many skiers might have gazed at, skied among, or jumped over these logs years before they became The Ski Hut.

According to Jalopy Cabins' Facebook page, The Ski Hut was recently sold (asking price was $18,000 including delivery / set-up on the buyers property), so I'm not sure where it is now. But hopefully The Ski Hut is somewhere with skis out on that front porch and skiers inside!